Featured Blogs

It’s probably fair to say that the information, communications and technology (ICT) industry is littered with the corpses of failed joint ventures, business partnerships and strategic collaborations that never quite achieved the ambitions of the parties involved. It’s an important remind...

In a recent Heavy Reading blog (reprinted below) on Three UK’s new approach to assurance for their fully integrated cloud native core network – a world first – it is clear that leading CSPs are integrating evolved and state-of-the-art assurance capabilities from the very beginning ...

Secondary or sub-brands are certainly nothing new in the mobile communications industry. Indeed, many mobile operators have used one or several sub-brands to target different sections of the market, with varying degrees of success.
In recent years, sub-brands have become an important tool f...

From reading the latest headlines in the media, you would think that the only things telcos care about right now are 5G, NFV/SDN and IoT devices. While this may be valid for the upper echelons of mobile and fixed network operators, it is not the case for many telcos. Indeed, a large number of them a...

QoS Challenges in the NFV/5G networks
NFV-core based 5G networks have already caught the fancy of the Telco Cloud service provider. The reasons for this are its promise of high QoS.
High speed/throughput, high reliability, low latency, high capacity, high availability, high connectivity and dynam...

The ability to make and receive calls is the lifeblood of any customer-facing enterprise, while conventional fixed telephony systems are becoming something of an anachronism as people now favour mobile devices. The question that most SMEs should now be asking their IT departments is: do we still nee...

Digitization of businesses and virtualization of networks promise business benefits but are also introducing new challenges for the communications service providers.
Ongoing exponential increase in data consumption by subscribers, especially of video applications and OTT, has taken a toll on the ...

As the SDN and NFV train steams further on its journey towards network revolution, has the industry stopped to consider the wider impact? Is the infrastructure in place to serve the demands of the new system?
Trials continue with a bout of enthusiasm for the potential of SDN and NFV, which ...

Coming out and ranting against federated inventory has been interesting given the amount of anonymous feedback I have received. Anyone wanting to talk about it, let’s connect at TMF next week!
First, any reasonable order management or workflow product out there regardless of federated data ...

Communications service providers (CSPs) have, over many years, become besotted by different forms of assurance. I’m not talking about insurance here; it’s more about making sure things work properly they way they were designed to and the way customers expect them to work.
Depending on...

Supply and demand is the most important relationship between operators and users. It is also a relationship that is now undergoing a profound change because of one single development: the fact that today’s users are always connected to a smartphone or tablet.
As well as being “always ...

Seriously - What Are We Waiting For?

If I have to listen to one more argument about network neutrality or equal access, I’m going to start another binge-eating session at a local hawker food court. The arguments for making network operators compete to dig trenches, pull cables and build towers are so tired that they don’t even make sense to the people spouting them anymore. There is no competition for the access network, operators build network infrastructure where it is profitable and demand is high. Likewise they don’t build it where it might benefit competitors. That’s not equal access or network neutrality. But if access is something that every citizen has a right to, then build it and get it over with. The question is not about competition, but whether or not communications is deemed critical infrastructure? If the answer is yes, which it is in many nations around the globe, then nationalize the network. Call it a common carrier, call it a Network Company (Singapore NetConnect), call it a legalized monopoly – but get it over with.

South Korea ranks at the top of global broadband availability, quality and affordability surveys. The emphasis there is on the availability of and competition to provide affordable services, not digging trenches and pulling fiber. In the US a DSL line costs roughly $30 per month for 1.5M download speed. In South Korea you can’t even buy a line that slow. For roughly the same cost you get 4M download. There are a lot of service providers in Korea but network providers are few and far between. Network providers are highly regulated and subject to government pricing controls.

“But Singapore and South Korea are smaller and more densely populated than the US or Canada”….boo hoo….You’re telling me that we shouldn’t compete with these countries in a global marketplace because we’re bigger?!? In 1918 (yes, the dawn of time) the US decided that its security and competitiveness would rely on the universal availability of phone service to every citizen and that one firm could more efficiently serve the public than two or more. Surcharges in densely populated areas enabled construction in rural areas and the result was the premier public network in the world.

Breaking up the AT&T behemoth in 1980s was about services – initially long distance, but ultimately data. The problem was that service was synonymous with a connection and that’s just not true anymore. The need for competition around services is more urgent that ever, but competition is actually being stifled by the network operators. Establishing a common carrier or several of them split up by geography to manage existing infrastructure, build where necessary and connect everybody with fiber and LTE will work if the network operators are properly regulated and compensated. The alternative is that the largest network operators – AT&T, Verizon, Cox, Comcast, etc. – will ultimately structurally separate their network operations anyway. However, that is still billions of dollars spent on redundant infrastructure that could be better spent elsewhere. So if a common carrier is where we’re headed – what are we waiting for? Let’s nationalized core infrastructure!